


We Hold These Truths

by AbelQuartz



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Beaches, Childhood Trauma, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Gen, Hugs, Late at Night, Men Crying, Ocean, Parenthood, Post-Episode s05e29-32 Change Your Mind, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27585817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbelQuartz/pseuds/AbelQuartz
Summary: Steven needs to talk with his dad.This is a quick story for a friend, to help them through rough times.
Relationships: Greg Universe & Steven Universe
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	We Hold These Truths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JosephThropp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosephThropp/gifts).



“A-and she...she didn’t say sorry.”

“Oh, man, kiddo. I-I can’t imagine.”

The van was parked just above the tideline. Steven stared at the receding water, coming in to stroke the sand before drifting away once more. His feet swung slowly out the back door, and Greg’s legs next to him were unusually still and stiff. They were far enough from the house to not hear the sounds of the Gems’ little party. It was unnerving in a way, to think about the two weeks that had passed between the return from Homeworld and the silence now.

“I never thought about taking it out myself, not ever,” Greg murmured. “When you were a baby, I thought — I thought that, if you went to human school, if you had a human doctor, they’d never stop asking about it. But Steven, I need you to know, you’re special just the way you all, every single part of you, and I’d never change it for the world.”

“Dad, I know, I  _ know _ .”

“Is this...about sleep?”

Steven blinked and tightened his grip on the van’s floor, careful not to bend the metal underneath his fingers. Was it that obvious? To his father, probably. The man had watched him sleep for just about the first decade of his life. He could see the boy’s face, the bruising underneath his eyes. Lying to the Gems had been easy, talking about his body adjusting to life on Earth again. They didn’t know any better. Even Connie backed off with enough reassurance.

Here and now, he felt immensely tired. The van was the place where he had always come back to sleep, and the bed was a perfect replacement for now that he was older and somewhat bigger, but the memories were enough to make him feel drowsy. Falling asleep meant dreams. Dreams weren’t his friends right now.

“Even though it’s not real in a dream, why does all that stuff feel real, dad?” Steven blurted. “I can taste pizza if I eat it in a dream, or feel cold snow, or hear someone yelling behind me. Is it because I have dream powers? Is this just another thing that I’m gonna have to live with ‘cause nobody else understands?”

“Hey, slow down there! Everyone feels that stuff with their dreams, really. I don’t know much about how the brain works, I’m not any kinda doctor, but there are...connections, places where the brain learns things. It’s how we learn about how to talk, where memories come from! And when you dream the brain can hit up all those places, good and bad.”

“So if something made a really strong connection, it would come up in dreams more often?”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but I guess that if you’re dreaming about something a lot then it’s on your mind. I know the feeling.” Greg chuckled, shaking out his hair as he turned his head to the stars. “I had lots of dreams before shows where I’d get out and all this bad stuff would happen. My guitar tried to eat me! Heh, maybe if that had happened, someone might have actually shown up.”

The reflection of the night sky twisted in beautiful patterns on the water’s surface. Beside him, Steven could hear his father yawning. It was a little too late for everyone to be up right now, but Greg had responded to the text message almost immediately. They didn’t have father-son emergency meeting often, but when they did, it was only a short drive. Sometimes Steven wished that Greg could be in the house with them. The van was his comfort, though, and taking him out to be a house-dad would have been too much for now. A wave smacked into the sand forcefully, and Steven felt his body twitch as he tried to resist a jump. The man turned his head. There was a second of silence.

“Buddy, are you dreaming about your Gem being taken out?” he murmured.

The words shriveled on the end of Steven’s tongue as he tried to speak. A hand on his shoulder, heavy and warm, was enough to make him nod. Greg took a breath and squeezed.

“And you’re feeling it, and… Oh, geez. Oh, Steven, that’s… Have you talked to anyone else about this? I know we can’t make your dreams go away, but you need to talk to the Gems, so they can help you out with this stuff! They were the ones there for it all.”

“No they weren’t! White controlled them!” Steven shouted. “Connie was the only one, an-and I can’t talk to her about this! She shouldn’t have to go through that all again!”

“Neither should you! This is your head, Steven, it’s the only one you got! It’s important to let it out, so that it doesn’t eat you up inside. I know it’s hard, and… Well, thank you, for telling me about it. That White Diamond sounds… I can see why your mom wanted to go.”

“She still thought I was her. They all do, inside, even if they don’t say it, they do.”

“No they don’t. Steven, no they don’t think that. You’re you, my human son. I know that we’ve had our ups and downs with the Gems and all, but they know now, they know better. I always knew but that’s because I’m human too. You got put into a weird situation, one that you shouldn’t be in, and it’s not your fault. Okay? Steven?”

The boy curled his lower lip inwards. His shoulders curved inwards, like they were trying to protect his ribcage from an invisible blow, or perhaps protect his gemstone. He didn’t notice it for most of the day and for most of his life, so attached was it to his body, so much a part of him. White Diamond didn’t care. She had come down with that smile, and she had looked at him right in the eyes before her nails dug into his skin. There were scratches that hadn’t been there before when he went to shower, tiny marks around the stone. He could feel them itch. He could feel the slight weight in his belly. Steven realized now, he hadn’t noticed the weight being lifted because he was lifting everything, carrying himself and all his weakness over the chamber floor. After every dream, the strength came flooding back to him, powerful and horrible all at once.

“Steven, you gotta look at me, man.”

“It hurts…”

“I know, buddy, I...”

The child sniffled and let the tears fall, like he always did, like he had been taught. Keeping it in wasn’t bad, but he had never been taught to hide the feelings; facts, facts were easier to shut in his own little vault. There was a line drawn, the lie of  _ I’m okay _ and the truth speaking otherwise. It did hurt, every time he dreamed, and he couldn’t keep that in any more. There were those perfect white eyes, the silver pupils, growing massive before him as his stomach was torn out. He had never had dreams that graphic and terrible, and had never dreamed about blood to that extent. On Homeworld, there wasn’t a single drop spilled, but in his imagination he was drowning in himself, and he woke up to the smell of sweat.

The two Universes were silent for a moment as Greg put his hand around the boy’s shoulder. Steven could feel the lightness of his grip, as the man actively tried not to squeeze, Steven knew, trying his best not to hurt his son. Greg kept his fists closed while Steven was one to grab things, to find solid ground wherever he could. A lump bobbed up into Steven’s throat before he could force it back down. 

“Aren’t you gonna say it?”

“Say, uh, say what, Steven?”

“You’re a dad. You tell me that everything’s gonna be okay.”

There was a moment of unusual silence before Steven looked up. Greg Universe had his head down, staring at the ocean with a look Steven didn’t see that often. His mouth was set in a wide frown, eyes moist and shaky underneath his brow. The man heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed Steven’s arm softly.

“I want to. More than anything, I want to tell you that it’s gonna be okay. But...what if I had said that before you flew up there? What if I had said that, and then you thought about that when all the bad stuff happened? What would you have thought of me then.”

“But I made it back. I-I’m here.”

“If anything had gone wrong, a single thing, then you would have thought about me telling you that things were gonna be okay, and it wouldn’t have been true,” Greg murmured. “And all these nightmares, if you’d come back, I would have been there, lying to you in your brain, saying it was okay, and I — Steven, I can’t do that anymore.”

“That — is so dumb! You’re my dad! I’m not just going to stop loving you because you wanted to make me feel better!”

“I know! It’s — I’m not saying it’s a right decision! But it’s real. All the things that have happened are so, so real, and I can’t pretend, Steven, I can’t pretend it’s all going to be okay any more.”

He choked on the last word, and Steven froze as he watched the tears start to run over his father’s cheeks, down into the brown stubble, into the beard. The man covered his mouth, turning his head in what Steven could only assume was shame. No, it wasn’t shame from crying, but it was shame from being seen. Greg’s past was as alien to Steven as the rest of the human experience, but he could only assume that he hadn’t been raised like Steven, with the freedom to cry and the freedom to love.

Steven pushed himself over and up, hopping into his dad’s lap. Greg stopped his labored breathing for just a moment, then slowly moved both his arms to wrap around the boy in a hug, like two big teddy bears in a mall display case. The man turned his whole body until he was leaning against the wall of the van, his legs out and Steven laid before him, back to chest. Their breathing was out of sync, but the boy measured it, beat by beat, until they were calmed together. The world was still a blur through his tears, of course, and yet they were together all the same. Greg cleared his throat, then kissed the top of Steven’s head.

“You...are the most important person in the world to me, Steven,” he said hoarsely. “More than I ever knew I could feel my whole life. And you’ve been through so, so much, and I wasn’t ever prepared for it, none of us were. And this… I always thought I’d be able to just raise you with what I knew, and what I didn’t know, you’d teach me just by bein’ you.”

“Mom didn’t tell you about Gem stuff, did she? None of the Gems really know how to talk about it, either.”

“She tried, just the basics. But she was so used to keeping secrets, she must’ve thought that keeping secrets meant she loved me. H-heh… Boy, that turned out weird.”

Well, it was almost funny. Steven’s smile wavered for a moment as he snuggled back into his dad. The weather was getting just a little colder, day by day. No more outdoor concerts until the spring. No more sleeveless shirts on the beach. The fires would be controlled and would keep them all warm for the first frosts of fall, until the snow locked them all inside.

“Dad, I know that when you say it’s gonna be okay, sometimes it’s not okay,” Steven said. “I know that you say it because it’s supposed to make me feel better. Like when...when I was riding my bike and fell over and scraped my knee. You say it’s okay, even when I think it’s bad.”

“This wasn’t a knee, though. This was...everything! It wasn’t okay. It’s inside me too, kiddo, that weird feeling that — I don’t know, that if I say it…”

He knew what the man meant. “It’s not your fault. It’s not...my fault, either. It was her fault, White’s fault, because she did it. She decided to hurt me, because she wanted to, and I know that wasn’t your fault because you’d never do anything to hurt me ever.”

“H-heh, you’re putting a lot of faith in me, buddy. I know I’ve made a couple overcooked hot dogs for you that have been a little harmful, at least to your lil’ belly.”

One big hand gently played the boy like a drum, just on the side of his guy, avoiding the bump in the middle. Steven couldn’t help but let out a giggle, letting himself be treated like a little kid once again. Being a teenager was a weird state, but sometimes, regressing wasn’t a bad thing, compared to keeping it all in. The feelings had been good when he was a boy, and they would continue to be good, even when his needs were different. Love was a constant need.

“If I ever do hurt you, kiddo, I need you to tell me though,” Greg said, letting his hands come to rest. “Because then, I want to fix it, any way that I can. And when you get hurt...do you want me to tell you it’s going to be okay? Even for the big ones?”

The big ones had indeed been big. What would have happened if Greg had been on Homeworld? What would the man have said there in the chamber, watching him be dissected, watching him reform? Steven imagined watching him with one eye, watching himself through the pinkness, as the other walked towards the light, led on one side by Connie and on the other by his dad. The man would have fought for him before, of course, and he would have been the first one to pick up the boy once he reformed, once he came back down to earth. The more he thought about it, the more Steven realized that both the memories he had were full, that he had seen himself in equal measure, pure strength and pure weakness all in one. He had seen himself, standing strong, standing happy, having been torn apart.

“I need you to tell me that, dad,” he whispered, “even if you think it’s a lie. Because...because I want to believe it, always, I want to make it happen. Even if it’s hard, it  _ is _ going to be okay. You taught me that, right? Just through...believing.”

“...I do believe it, Steven. I believe it’s all gonna be okay. Because you’re a brave boy, you’re a strong child, you’ve got the music in you, you’re talented, you’re kind, you’re everything to me, and because I love you. It’s gonna be okay ‘cause I love you.”

“I love you too, dad, I…”

He swiveled himself around in the loop of his father’s arms so that he could squeeze the man, pressing their bodies together like he was an infant clinging for dear life. The gemstone and the years of fast food met each other in soft harmony, and each pair of arms squeezed as much as it could. Steven felt his father grunt under the squeeze, and he felt the muscles tighten around his back, stronger than gravity, stronger than light. And it was all so familiar, and so new, the moment of coming together in the present. There was no defined future, and it could be written as much as they imagined it. 

It was going to be as good as he could make it. There was still so much work to do, but everyone was going to be working with him, helped by his father, and all the Gems everywhere in the galaxy. For a moment, Steven forgot about his nightmare. Whether or not it came back, Steven knew he could walk downstairs no matter how late it was and look in the mirror, tiptoes on his stepladder, and he could repeat the message over and over again in his head.

More importantly, the dreams were coming, and there was nothing he could do about it. The only way to make it better was to make it matter, and Steven kept hugging long past the point where he needed it, until he felt like he was going to melt into the black shirt below him and stripe it with pale skin and pink streaks. It was that surreality he wanted to take with him to his dreams tonight. Whether or not Greg Universe had dreams like him, well, who was to say? But Steven kept hugging, pushing himself into the man, because maybe tonight, both of their brains would bounce that event off, and they could hold each other through the night and the nightmares, telling each other the truth.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't take it from me, but maybe it is going to be okay. We need comfort from whoever we can find it in — our friends, our family, our lovers, our fictional characters... But most importantly, ourselves. There are things in our lives that may seem impossible to change, and some of them are. Steven and Greg have each other, a special bond that we can only wish to have with our family. As long as we grow older, as long as we make peace with the world, there will be peace to come. Sometimes we must fight. Sometimes we must slog. But the universe will reach an equilibrium regardless; in that, may you find what humans call love.
> 
> <3


End file.
